Maine prison reviews staffing levels after 3 escapes

WARREN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Three escapes in less than three weeks have led the Maine Department of Corrections to launch a review of staffing at the Bolduc Minimum Security Facility in Warren.

An inmate walked away from the unit Saturday night. 26-year old Clifford Perkins has still not been found. Two other inmates walked away earlier on November 7, also a weekend night.

Corrections Commissioner Marty Magnusson says staffing could be an issue. He says budget cuts earlier this year forced the department to eliminate 16 positions at Bolduc and the neighboring Maine State Prison. That also prompted a change to 12-hour work shifts for corrections officers.

Magnusson says, "The bottom line is that prior to the reductions we would generally at the time on a Saturday have five staff and now generally we're running at four."

As a result he says the department is now studying the staffing plan to see if there are any changes needed. He says they are also reviewing the "risk assessment" classification used for inmates.

The budget cuts were made earlier in the year by the Legislature to balance the state budget. Bolduc officials say one other result is that some inmate training programs are no longer available because there are no staff members to teach them.

Bolduc is true minimum security - no fences or gates, and inmates are allowed to walk around the grounds under specific rules.

Corrections officers say there are frequent checks and "headcounts" to make sure everyone is accounted for. It was after one of those counts on Saturday night that Perkins was discovered to be missing. Corrections officials say he was in Bolduc for violating probation, after serving time for burglary.

Magnusson says Perkins had been in Bolduc before and had not been a problem -- even qualifying for work release.

He says prisoners can sometimes be unpredictable and that other escapees have said they made a "spur of the moment" decision to run off -- a decision they likely regret because escape can add three to five years to a sentence.

Police are still hunting for Perkins. Those other two escapees were captured last week in Rhode Island.